O Cinema in Miami announces thanks to the support of Knight Foundation who will work with Magnolia Pictures to make the documentary I Am Not Your Negro (June 7th) available for FREE. The film screening (and that of two others) are being made possible thanks to the support of Knight Foundation, which has generously agreed to cover the rental fees for viewers.
When the credits roll on respected Haitian filmmaker RAUL PECK’S powerful documentary you will notice that screenwriter listed is in fact the late author and social critic JAMES BALDWIN himself. This memoir/semi-biography of this great African/American man of letters which links the ideas of three assassinated leaders uses only prose lifted from directly from Baldwin’s texts or letters which are read with a mixture of passion and dignity by the actor Samuel L Jackson.
In fact one of the major pieces that Peck uses is from a manuscript called Notes Toward Remember This House which was a essentially an impassioned 30 page letter that Baldwin wrote to a literary agent in 1979 to explain why he couldn’t accept a particular writing commission. He had been asked to pen a biography about the lives of three of his civil rights activists friends who had given their lives for their beliefs : MEDGAR EVERS, MALCOM X and MARTIN LUTHER KING.
However, the most remarkable aspect of Peck’s film is the way he and editor Alexander Strauss juxtapose archival footage with the prolific Baldwin’s words with video excepts of current troubled spots like FERGUSON which demonstrate with disarming accuracy how spot on Baldwin’s fears have become a reality some thirty years after his death.
What shines through time and time again is that despite the fact that Baldwin was so out of line with with most political and social commentators at that time …… and definitely with the general public ….. he garnered respect, albeit somewhat reluctant, for his outspoken opinions and views, which one somehow feels that maybe he would not have been accorded in the present political climate. Baldwin said at the time that racism is the source of America’s emotional and moral poverty, and that apathy and ignorance are the price of segregation.
The film will be made available to view Sunday, for FREE, during a 24-hour window. Please register in advance to watch I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO by filling out a quick form to receive a secure link and password to view the film. The email with link and password will arrive in your inbox each Sunday at 1:00pm (EST). ?️ RSVP: https://bit.ly/2Xtp07G
(The other two movies are Whose Streets? (June 14th) and Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am)
Labels: 2020, Black Lives Matter, documentary, James Baldwin, O Cinema
